Musical Worlds of Yogyakarta

1. Sosrowijayan and its Street Workers

1 Sosrowijayan and its street workers In Yogyakarta’s Sosrowijayan neighbourhood, ‘village-like’ kampung conventions intermingle with urban dynamism. Sosrowijayan is bordered by Marlioboro Street to the east and the city’s central railway station to the north (see Map to Part One). It accommodates the majority of Yogyakarta’s ‘sloppily dressed western tourists’ (Mulder 1996:180) and merges into the Flower Market (Pasar Kembang ) red-light district. The nearby areas of Pajeksan and Dagen indicate the earlier courtly roles of prosecutors and woodworkers respectively (John Sullivan 1992:23); and the Flower Market’s former name of Balokan (timber yard) is well known. By contrast, the history of Sosrowijayan rarely receives much attention, in everyday conversation and scholarly research alike.1 The neighbourhood was a single administrative district up to the time of Japanese occupation (1942-1945), but was subsequently divided in two. In 2001 the eastern tourist-oriented half consisted of ten neighbourhood units (Arta 2002). Despite the renown of Sosrowijayan (or ‘Sosro’), a surprisingly large number of Yogyakarta residents I spoke with knew little or nothing of the area. Some who were familiar nonetheless did not know their way around its many back alleys behind Malioboro Street, and many described the area as ‘grubby’ or ‘shabby’. One man further commented that many mischievous people frequented the area. When pressed to be more specific, he described the eastern, Malioboro end as ‘an international kampung’ in a fairly neutral tone, and then denigrated the western end inhabited by a plethora of commercial sex workers who, as Patrick Guinness (1986:89-90) notes, had been in operation since before 1975 (see also Mujiyano 1985). Economic disparities between locals and foreigners underpinned the high financial stakes for local business. A sense of the differing levels of economy is evident in the average prices of commercially purchased meals in 2001: 1 Studies by Norma Sullivan (1994) and John Sullivan (1992) are relevant here. | Musical worlds in Yogyakarta 40 Table 3. Average price of meals by sector, 2001 Meals were at least 400% more expensive in Sosrowijayan than in surrounding villages. Economic imbalances between foreigners and locals were even more striking, particularly after the onset of the economic crisis. But the social groups operating in these economic arenas to some degree blurred and overlapped. Locals from various class backgrounds and some foreigners ate snacks or drank tea at roadside eateries. In these cases prices were considerable for those locals who usually operated in village economies, and extremely affordable for foreigners. At the same time, many street guides engaged in social or economic activities with foreigners regularly ate at the latter’s expense in backpacker cafés and even high-class hotels. While ‘long-term budget travellers’ (Riley 1988:313), students, development workers and business people all contributed to Sosrowijayan ’s economic imbalances, collectively they also underpinned the extensive local/foreigner social and cultural interaction that characterised the area. In the realm of popular music, Sosrowijayan’s international dimension exercised considerable influence among and between workers, residents and visitors on the street. Understandings of Sosrowijayan’s popular history generally centred on the 1970s. This was the beginning of the neighbourhood’s mainstream incorporation into the ‘hippy trail’, and a period associated with international popular and rock music trends such as reggae and British heavy metal. Older residents and former street guides also mentioned Indonesian pop groups that had been popular and influential in Sosrowijayan since the 1970s, such as Koes Plus and D’Lloyd.2 However, street guides and their associates most often spoke of and played music from the mid-1980s ‘Jakarta Spring’ period of cultural liberalisation (Lockard 1998:105-13). Jalanan figure Sawung Jabo suggested to me that such songs were a vehicle for the expression of anger or resistance during the Soeharto years, but 2 See Lockard 1998:4-5. On developments in theatre in the mid/late 1970s Yogyakarta, see Hatley 2008:13-38; on music in Indonesia more broadly, see Piper and Jabo 1987. Setting Average price of a meal Rp US$ High-class hotel 50,000 5.00 Backpacker café in Sosrowijayan 12,000 1.20 Roadside eatery in the city, incl. Sosrowijayan 2,500 25c Eatery in a surrounding village 600 6c 1 Sosrowijayan and its street workers | 41 were nowadays mostly a source of fun. Sosrowijayan-based street guides generally considered pop groups of the Reformasi period to be for middle class and largely depoliticised...